


Today

by hatstand



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Gen, drunk pilots trying to pretend they are ok, drunk poe is sweary, i just wanted them to talk, my general leia has a lot of carrie fisher in her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5699044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatstand/pseuds/hatstand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Starkiller blows and the good guys win and on D’Qar there’s a party, because what else do you do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Today

**Author's Note:**

> I have a thousand alt headcanons of how they talk to one another and this is what fell out. Prompted by that DK 'she's his hero' page that did the rounds, and just wanting more Leia being the General.

The Starkiller blows and the good guys win and on D’Qar there’s a party, because what else do you do?

Only 7 x-wings make it back. 7 x-wings and the Falcon with its precious cargo and given the odds, that’s better than they had any right to expect, because they should all be dead. They should all just be dead and the Starkiller should be prepping for its next move and the First Order should be free to march its shitty march all over everything, and that’s not happening next after all, so damn right there’s a party.

Poe spends it laughing out loud, holding tight to Snap and Jess, trying to feel happy they made it in a way that doesn’t make it feel like he’s happy the others didn’t. He sends BB-8 to sit with Finn and comm him updates from the medical droids.

_Finn is in bacta::_  
_Finn is responding well::_  
 _Finn is out of bacta::_  
 _Rey is here::_  
 _Rey’s hand is holding Finn’s hand::_

He leads a toast to the fallen, and another to the Resistance for ‘kicking big old sun-sucking planetary ass’.

He gets drunk.

There’s dancing, music, a gonk droid on a table wearing a flower crown. Poe’s been to a shitload of these things and this is a peach, because they earned a peach, the scale of what they just pulled off, the sheer audacity of it, it’s every story his mom ever told him about the old days and -

Just like that, a fingersnap, he’s too drunk and it’s too warm and too loud and if he doesn’t get out of here -

Poe slides backwards into the shadows, still laughing, every pulse in his body screaming _gogogo_ until he reaches the door and slips out before anyone can see.

Almost anyone.

 

*

 

The cool air hits like an embrace and he lets it walk him all the way up and down the grassy rise and fall of the hangar hills, out to Hill 3.

It’s a makeout spot, to be honest. In a few hours there’ll be sloppy kisses all over it. But right now it is all peace, apart from the steady thrum of the bassline in the distance and the whirring of the recon tower, keeping tabs on the space above.

Poe sits down in the damp grass, the hill at his back, and stares at nightfall on a planet that smells of wet foliage and earth and life, of living things. This is what he needs. He breathes deep, waiting for it to ground him.

‘Might have known I’d find you here,’ says a familiar voice, amused.

Well, shit.

Poe makes to get up but she waves a hand, rolling her eyes at his courtesy as she settles down on the grass beside him with a small huffy groan.

General Leia Organa, looking at him with the sort of direct scrutiny that to this day makes him want to check his hair isn’t sticking up funny.

‘Unless you’re waiting for someone else? Don’t want to be a third wheel, now.’

She’s joking. He’s pretty sure she’s joking. He’s good at reading people but he’s always been so eager to please her he can never quite tell when she’s yanking his chain.

‘Adrenaline crash,’ he says, realising he’s still holding a bottle and taking a swig. ‘Just needed a minute.’

‘Uh-huh.’ The General nods, slowly, still scrutinising him.

He can feel her about to send him to a medic to have conversations he doesn’t want to have.

‘In context this may seem a little out there, but - I’m sorry for your personal loss, General.’

He is, he can’t imagine what she’s going through - but it’s a deflection. He feels sticky with shame.

She presses her lips together, dipping her head a fraction. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry for what my son has done. To you, and others.’

Poe looks at the sky, dark now, trying to find a star to hang onto. They all whirl around instead. He’s drunker than is at all useful. He fucked up. He’s probably meant to say something now to make it better - but he doesn’t know how or what that would be and - she’s looking at him with kindness, the sort of indulgent sympathy that is going to set him right off any second with sobbing on her shoulder or something equally mortifying which he will never be able to undo and he’ll have to just fly off into a sun or something.

‘So your mother told me to look after you, you know,’ she says, glaring up at the sky.

Yep, there it is.

‘And I’m starting to feel like no one listens to their damn mother enough in this universe, so in the absence of your mother and my son, I’m going to dispense you some wisdom, kid, and I’m sorry if that’s not what you came out here for but that’s how it is.’

Poe nods slowly, and wishes he wasn’t such a drunken fuckup, because on any other night a conversation like this would be a dream and right now it feels like someone is standing on his face and kicking it between every word she says.

The General reaches across, takes the bottle. He thinks its to save him and flushes, but she smirks, and knocks back a swig, settling her back against the hill beside him.

‘Today,’ she says, ‘I went to a victory party, and also my husband died. Today I watched my enemy crumble, and I have pilots with no graves to add to a roster that’s already too damn long. Today I am standing here because luck and sacrifice and hope countered the odds, but the Republic is on fire and if we’re the only thing that can rebuild it then there’s just not enough of us. And today my son is lost to me forever. You know all this, don’t look so horrified.’

He didn’t mean to, he just wasn’t completely in control of his face, and -

The General shrugs.

‘I’m saying this because these are the facts. And this is a victory, for us, a day like today. One for the calendar! A new party! I should give out some medals, people like that.’

She sighed; tipped his bottle again and drank.

‘Adrenaline crashes happen to Generals too,’ she said, sighing again, and offering him a swig.

Poe took it, swallowed, and passed it back.

‘Your mom would not approve of anything I just said or did, FYI,’ she said, wrapping her hands around the bottle. ‘That was all me. But this - this is the good stuff, so buckle up. I am accustomed to weighing the profit and loss. I am accustomed to accepting that no joy comes into our lives without cost - especially not a life like mine. And when all is said and done, when we have done our checks and balances, where are we today? Where has it left us?’

There’s a long enough pause that Poe thinks it’s probably not a rhetorical question after all.

‘Uh. Drunk on a hill. Not dead. But - not ok.’

The General raises an eyebrow, and shit, it was rhetorical, he’s just going to dig himself a literal hole now and -

She smirks, and bops his shoulder with her head, kind of fond, and he doesn’t really know what to do with that.

She clears her throat. ‘Where we are is victorious. Extraordinary. We did the impossible and we can do it again! And while I might, myself, think that right now I could spend a good seven or eight hours out here, crying, nothing else, just crying, and it could be fourteen hours, or more, I don’t know, days maybe - I could do that. I’d like to do that. But what I am going to do, Poe Dameron, is walk back into that damn party and drink with my comrades and revel in all their joy. Because that is what leaders do.’

She’s standing over him suddenly, looking down with soft eyes, kindness, regret. Then her face sets. She gives him a curt nod, hands clasped behind her back.

‘I’ll see you inside,’ she says, and Poe knows an order when he hears one.


End file.
